Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Decoding Disruptors: Shivani Siroya, Founder & CEO of Tala

Episode Date: March 8, 2020

Welcome to Decoding Disruptors, a special edition of the Finding Mastery podcast presented without interruption by Microsoft.Decoding Disruptors takes a deep dive into the minds of extraordinary women who have disrupted the narrative in their businesses, industries, and communities. Every conversation was filmed and is currently available at decodingdisruptors.com.This conversation is with Shivani Siroya, who built a near-billion dollar business on the back of a simple belief: people are trustworthy.After holding jobs with big investment banks and with the United Nations, Shivani recognized a global problem: almost a third of the world doesn’t have access to credit because they have no way to build a credit score.Without credit, people can’t get home loans, small business loans, life improvement loans. It’s difficult to progress personally or professionally.So she did something about it.Shivani founded Tala, a smartphone lending app designed to provide access to credit to two billion people who have historically been overlooked by traditional financial institutions.Taking advantage of increasing mobile phone use in emerging markets, the Tala app uses behavioral data on the phone – texting, merchant history, overall app usage – to build a credit profile.Based on the aggregated information, algorithms evaluate individual risk and provide instant loans to customers. _________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. Welcome to Decoding Disruptors. This is a special edition of the Finding mindset, inclusion, and diversity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. That's their mission statement. It's awesome. I've been fortunate enough to have like an upfront view over the last handful of years of Microsoft. And I'm telling you, this organization truly cares about people and the psychological skills they need to flourish. So I couldn't be

more excited to partner with Microsoft in bringing this series to life. And Decoding Disruptors, what we're doing is we're taking a deep dive into the minds of extraordinary women who have disrupted the narrative in their business, their industries, their communities, and it all begins with the narrative that they changed around themselves, within themselves, about what is possible. I had the chance to interview nine amazing women for this series, and all of the conversations were filmed, and they're currently available at DecodingDisruptors.com. There's lots of other stuff around the content that's there, so I really want to encourage you to go check it out. DecodingDisruptors.com. You can watch short form. You can watch long form. We've curated all of the women's insights based on

mindset principles. So go check DecodingDisruptors.com for more. And you can also take our Disruptors assessment, the Compete to Create team. We're so inspired by the insights of these women that we wanted to spin up a little assessment. And it's a pilot assessment, just to spark awareness of where you are on the psychological skills related to the path of disruption of your own narrative in your life. And again, that's all available at decodingdisruptors.com. Now, this week's conversation is with Shivani Soroya, and she built a near billion dollar business on the back of a simple belief. People are trustworthy. Okay, so how does that come about? After holding jobs with big investment banks and with the United Nations, Shivani recognized a global problem. Almost a third of the world doesn't have access to credit because they have no way to build a credit score. So without credit, it's obvious people can't get home loans and small business loans and

life improvement loans. It's difficult to progress personally and professionally when you're outside of that loop. So she did something about it. And Shivani founded Tala. And it's a smartphone lending app designed to provide access to credit to 2 billion people that have historically been overlooked by traditional financial institutions. The Tala app uses behavioral data on the phone. And what they're doing is they're building a

credit profile for people. It's amazing. It's sophisticated. It's smart. It's wonderful. It is so organically genius that I'm so stoked to share what she's doing and her team. And so with this aggregated information and the algorithms that they've created, they can evaluate individual risk and provide instant loans to customers. And with that, Shivani has disrupted financial systems. But what's more remarkable about her is she has a complete alignment in every aspect of her life. Wait until you hear this. Wait until you hear this conversation, how she works. It's amazing. And what's amazing about it is how wonderfully purposeful she is, how strong her ideas are, and how delicately she embraces the fragility of the human experience. I mean, amazing. Everything she does is grounded in a clear philosophical approach. And what I love about this, and I mean, I love about this, is that she reminds us all of how important it is and how

clear it becomes when you work from principles that serve others. This conversation made me better, and I hope it does the same for you. Actually, strike that. I don't hope it does. I want to challenge you to listen deeply and to act quickly on clarifying the principles that guide your thoughts, your words, and your actions. What are they? Write them down. Get crisp about them. Practice them.

And stay the course on your mission in life. If you haven't done that work, if you don't know your philosophy, the thing that guides your thoughts, words, and actions, and you don't have your mission or vision of where you want to go in life and who it is that you're working on becoming, forget about it. So I want to, this is the challenge, right? To listen deeply and to act quickly. And I'm so fired up to share this conversation with you. So, and another massive appreciation for Microsoft for making this magical series come to life. And so head over to DecodingDisruptors.com, check out the videos. And with that, let's jump right into this episode of Decoding Disruptors with Shivani Saroja.

Just walk through and give a sense of what your business is. The first thing I always think of is, you know, before I get into what we do, I think of it as we're a mission-focused company. And we're really focused on essentially increasing the financial health of the underserved globally. So it sounds like a very broad thing, but we are tactically really kind of solving that through our Android application. So we developed a very simple Android platform

that allows us to essentially open up financial access to the underserved across all of these emerging markets. Why did you want to develop a mission-minded company as opposed to what most companies do? Like where did that come from for you? I mean I guess I don't know. I would say that as much as I we say mission-minded I think I think of it as you, I found a problem, right? And so it's not necessarily a mission. It's much more, I mean, I could have even said, you know, we are a problem-focused company or a purpose-focused company.

And I think that's the point is, like, you know, why do you exist? It's not just to go put another product out there or anything. I think of it as ultimately if what we're trying to do is fundamentally change, you know, a system or fundamentally change like the paradigm of why people are currently underserved by traditional financial institutions, then it has to be led with that at the center of it, at the center, at the front, at the back, et cetera. It's always going to be about solving a problem. Okay. So when I hear that, I hear that you have a rich purpose. Your purpose is clear. There's a problem that you recognized, and then you built an idea, a company based on

how to solve that, which is a purpose. And there's three components to purpose. I'm not sure if you're familiar with them, but you hear about what is your why, right? But there's actual science to purpose. And the three components, and I'd like to go down this list with you, is that it matters to you. Is that true? Yes. It's bigger than you. And it's in the future, meaning that there's something to work towards. So there's clarity of vision. You have all three, right? It matters to you, it's bigger than you, and then it's down the road. What is bigger than you?

What aspect of Talia is bigger than you? I think the thing, you know, I think a lot about is this idea that there has to be, you know, there has to just be more trust in the world. And so that is much bigger than even me because it is something that we cannot describe necessarily, right? There are ways that, you know, yes we can prove that with data, which is what I'm trying to show the world. We can prove that through outcomes, we can prove that through belief in each other, etc. But fundamentally it's something that has to exist, in my opinion, for systems to work.

Are you a systems thinker? Yes. Okay, so trust is a prerequisite for systems to work well. It's also a prerequisite for relationships to work well. Yes. Now the interesting thing about trust is that it is built before the age of two, pre-verbal. So before we can even put words together, we're sorting out, should I trust my environment? Were my caretakers good to me? So if we got way back to you, to your early days, how did you build trust? Like what was it like early days for you as a child? So I grew up in a very big family. I have 27 first cousins, but I'm an only child. Okay. So help me understand that family narrative. What were you guys about?

So grew up partially with my grandparents, you know, moved around a little bit from, you know, countries as a young child, moved to multiple schools. I don't know, I think that there is an element of, I just fundamentally trusted that both my community, my family, my friends, etc., have truly believed that the majority of the world is good. And so I trust. Do you have a sense that there are bad people in the world? Of course. I don't think of it as bad. I think there are, I would say that yes, there are fraudulent people in the world. But I would say that the majority of the population is good. Why did you take the word bad, which is a judgment label?

Why did you do something just now with that word? I think that it's not a binary. And so I think that what we need to do to trust is understand. And so if I think of it as bad, good, then that's just creating this like zero one thing. And really what you're trying to do is think of it as if you think that the majority of the world is good, right? Then really what we want to understand is, OK, how do I weed out, you know, kind of bad intentions, bad things like that? And then really fundamentally understand how can I serve everyone in some way. Okay, so where did that come from? Where did that thought that people are fundamentally good, and the majority of people,

right? You're leaving space for some folks that are not, right? Yeah, you have to be somewhat realistic. So the majority of people are fundamentally good. They want to have, we all breathe the same air. We live on the same planet, we want the same basic aspirations for our children. Where did that come from in your early days? Maybe in my early days, what I was able to uniquely see was the interdependence that we all have on each other. And I think maybe also seeing it as because we're so interdependent on each other, we're actually not that different. That's a family ethos that we're going to support each other to do well in the world. So you come from a family that has, you are global citizens and you want to add to the community health.

Yeah. And I've always thought of it as, I'll just give you an example, my grandparents' house, where I, you know, in Udaipur, in Rajasthan, in India, it's like... Is that where you grew up, or was it on the east coast? Both. Okay. Right. So where were you born? In India. In India. Okay, and then what was that like, the community that you lived in? Very much just like, you know, Udaipur is both a small town but also a tourist town, so it's pretty bustling, right? But where my grandparents, their old home, we had a very large courtyard and, you know, they had, we lived on one side of it, but right across from us and essentially in the same kind of house right across our courtyard we had another family that lived there and they were you know at the time i didn't know growing up but

they were living in you know i would say very um not extreme poverty but they were very poor and they essentially lived in the same place that they worked they were um you know grinding flour um and so it was you know five kids um the mom and dad the kids were also working but i played with the kids right um we all were together we you know we studied together we did everything together and until growing up and really realizing both from my grandparents my my parents, that yes, the opportunities that I obviously had ended up being very different. You know, we obviously lived in the U.S. I went off to college. I did all these other things. But I think that portion of growing up and not knowing the difference and nobody telling me the difference or pulling me away from that made it so that I don't really see that in

most people. Is there a spiritual framework that you're attached to or that you're part of? I'm Jain. Jainism? Yeah. Beautiful. Okay, so I would have guessed Hindu, right? But that's not the case for you. Okay, so what are the core tenets of Jainism that are meaningful to you? I think the biggest thing is that it is a philosophy versus a religion. And the core tenant is nonviolence. So it is really about, you know, how can you ensure that you're not doing any harm? And, you know, obviously there's the extreme versions of you know the jain kind of monks and things like that they'll wear a handkerchief over their mouth so that they're not even killing the bugs in the air. And you know we can all think of that as an extreme but it's actually an

intentionality right it's actually saying in anything I do what can I do to protect humanity from my own existence. How is that playing forward in your business now? It's, it's, I think this is the fun part of it being a business and also being very purposeful, right? So you have to always think of every action you're doing. If you don't look beyond what it is, you might intentionally hurt someone, right? And those are the hardest moments of trying to grapple with that. And so how can you make sure you do less harm in the world? Less harm or more good? I would say more good, but at the same time, you can say, sure, there's more good in the world,

but if I somehow caused even a thousand people to be worse off than they started, what's the, you know? And you have to, I personally think those are the questions you ask yourself. Are you a technology company at its core? Yes. Okay. So how many women with your ethnicity and your philosophical approach are in the tech

industry? It's a hard question to ask because here's what I would actually say. I think there is actually many of us. I think that we just, you know, the difference is I have found my purpose a lot earlier. And so part of it is also that I do believe everyone has it. And I think, again, I think most people are actually the same in this way at their core. I think part of it is insecurity. And so being able to be really open. So I may be an introvert, but I am actually not afraid to share how I feel about things in that way. And so I think that's the thing is at the core we're all

the same it's it's the time it might take some of us to get that out there okay there's two things i heard in there one is the courage to say the thing that is true and i want to follow that thought and then also the fact that there's not many people at a ceo level running a tech firm that's mission minded that you have been afforded the luxury of them carving a path for you so I you tell me which way do you want to take the conversation do you want to go to you know the more courageous part or for conversation and confrontation or the more courageous word you know blazing a trail that hasn't been cut yet i think they're kind of the same though right like if you think about it i think they are too i love that you went there

because it's the same core construct it is okay so take take me somewhere here yeah and i can't describe it either is is uh i think you know sure i don't have many examples of women that have done this you're right um and and i think maybe that's what i'm trying to say is i think they are doing it they're not calling it i'm going after a purpose or anything i think there is courage that women have and and i've seen it firsthand right like the work i did previously at the un population fund i worked with micro entrepreneurs across nine different countries. We may not have seen it in technology, but we see women standing up and taking charge of their families, standing up to their husbands. And their purpose is, I want to help my kids

succeed. So I want to help fuel my community, or I want to give back to that community. And so I think when you're saying like, what fueled you in taking that courage or being courageous, I think part of it is I don't, I go back to it wasn't like an intention, it was literally pulled in a certain direction and I just kept going. When you go inside to your own narrative and there's a challenge, do I go, do I say the thing or do I not say the thing? Let's stay on that path for a minute. How do you wrestle with yourself? Like, is it eloquent? Is it easy? Is it complicated? Is it edgy? Is it scratchy? Like, what is it like inside for you when you're wrestling with to say or not say?

The reason writing is great around that is the fact that I can go back and actually look at the times when I haven't said it and remind myself that whenever I haven't said it, I eventually have to say it, right? Because it's not going to get me closer to that goal. It's not going to make life easier. It's not going to do any of the things. And so you have to kind of muster that up because ultimately you're going to need to do it eventually, right? Like if you want to go do these things. Do what? What are these things? Well, if you want to change systems, if you want to change the way people think. Why do you want to change systems in the way people think? I think that if I don't, then who will? If not you, then who?

Yeah. And it's not to say it as like a cheesy quote, but it's sort of like we all just have to do it. And if I don't see everyone doing it, then at least some of us have to. OK, so there's a classic experiment in psychology where there's something taking place, a crime that's taking place. And it's called the bystander effect.

When there's many people watching the crime take place, there's a diffusion of responsibility where people say somebody else will do it. And that's a classic human sociological condition that unfortunately we've embedded. You don't fall into that same system. So you're saying, no, no, no. I see something and I'm going to raise my hand and I'm going to commit my life efforts to it. What gives you the right?

And I don't, this is not bombastic when I say this, but what gives you the right to say that I can? Like, how does that work inside you? Because I think you represent something extraordinary. You've seen something. Many people have seen the injustice you've seen. And then how do you organize your inner life to say, I can, I think I can do that? I'll go into two things. The first thing is there's definitely work that you do on yourself, right? And I'll go into that. The second part though, is I do have support. And so,

and sure, that support has trained me in other ways that helped myself. But I think of it as, you know, and i always remind myself a little bit that's like look i could go down the rabbit hole of this thing not working of me not achieving or not being able to solve this problem it's a huge problem right it's a massive system that i am changing but which is if sorry to interrupt the narrative but is it is the problem that you're solving is availability to funds and figuring out how people, it's not that. Is it, okay, well, you know better than I do, but I'd like to take one more guess at it. Sure, go for it.

Is it to teach people or to demonstrate that people are trustworthy to build their own missions and to repay loans that otherwise they wouldn't have access to so I would have just stopped you as it's is it to change the perception that people are trustworthy that's the that's the purity of the mission and it just happens to be the mechanism is lending the mechanism is financial services yes mechanism is financial services, yes. And you're disrupting the financial service model. Financial systems. Financial systems. Yeah, okay, so you're disrupting the financial systems by creating an avenue for people to learn how to trust others. Essentially, it's showing that an entire population that has been overlooked by traditional financial

institutions is actually trustworthy. So not only can we serve these individuals with credit, with insurance products, savings products, bill payment, like essentially all of the things that you and I have access to within financial services, it's showing that this population that's been underserved, overlooked, I mean overlooked, sorry, is really trustworthy and are actually profitable consumers that you should have been serving all along. If we do that, it's not only disrupting financial systems, it's essentially disrupting the entire marketplace, right? It means that these customers now suddenly become desirable. And so education, healthcare, e-commerce, everything starts to actually be open to them.

And so as I thought about it, if my goal is really around trustworthiness and really proving that, I can go into any vertical. But the reason that financial services or financial systems made the most sense to me is I believe it is the underpinning of almost every other system. Trust. Trust, but actually at the end of the day, if we think about it, you know, economic livelihood, cash, money, it is what's driving your ability to gain access to preventative health systems. It's the avenue into these other things. And so if we just go solve that first part, I actually think the other pieces start to fall into place. I think this is why I was so attracted to what you're doing is that you've got this humanistic approach to organizing your efforts in life. And it starts with trust and trust of others

how do you how have you learned how to trust yourself it's a good question I don't know if I always do okay so what does that mean where do you get stuck in that question mm-hmm because I think I think you know and and this is why I actually don't think again even trust it's not a binary thing right I think, you know, and this is why I actually don't think, again, even trust is not a binary thing. Right. I think there are. It certainly isn't. Yeah. Yeah.

And so the reason I get lost in that question is that I have times when I trust myself 200,000%, you know, and then I have times when I'm at 100%. What just happened in this conversation when you didn't know what to say? thousand percent, you know? And then I have times when I'm at a hundred percent. What just happened in this conversation when you didn't know what to say? If we use this as a moment to say, how do you work? What did you do inside of yourself? I think I took a moment to kind of go back in and be like, okay, like trust that you'll find that answer. Okay. And then what was competing for the, did you get unsettled in that moment or were you? For a second. For a second. And then what unsettled you?

Well, we're on camera. Yeah, there's people watching. Too much time to answer this question. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so there's a, there's a competing competing resources. And with the competing resources, you take a beat and a moment to say, hold on, trust yourself. And is it that simple for you?

Yeah. And then I think, I mean, like the question you asked is not necessarily one that's life or death, right? It's not a question that is going to suddenly affect millions of people. And so when I, you know, in that moment, it can take a beat, right? If it's a question about our team, if it's a question about a new product launch that could affect millions of people, those kinds of things, it's not going to take a second to kind of regroup it could take a week it could take two weeks but the point is and maybe this is the thing that I have has led me down this is that you have to have a little bit of faith in trusting yourself and knowing you will get there so it's it's a little bit of an acceptance but it's a little bit more of saying,

you've gotten this far, right? You're here, and that's not an accident. And if you can remember that, you can start to listen to something that's different than just, you know, everything you read or everything you hear and all that stuff. This is what I wanted to talk to you. I mean, that's the essence of it. You've gotten here. So you would believe or hold firm that you're an agent in your own life, that you have agency, right? And it's a fancy phrase for you're co-creating or at least influencing the steps that you take

and the thoughts that you have. Well, we're laughing because it's something that I talk a lot about is really ultimately what we're trying to provide for the world is to give them agency, right? And I believe agency starts with that ability to really have the trust in yourself, but you need to have the capacity, which is really part of that,

and you need to have the tools. Okay, so for the capacity piece, the way that I think about capacity is that you have to build it. And so the way that we build capacity is by getting on the edge of things that are uncomfortable and difficult to deal with. Can you walk me through an example of something that's really hard for you, that gets you out on the edge? We're talking about the fact that most markets or countries around the world don't even have national ID systems. So we are actually holding people's identity. Your company is, based on the access they give you to their cell phone information, if I understand it correctly. And the fact that they are uploading the front and back of their national IDs, whatever that

might be, any ID that they have. They're taking a picture of themselves. It's a lot of, I mean, that in and of itself, it's like, we're a company here, 600 people, I'm doing this for the first time. It's a lot to hold, right? It's a big responsibility. In addition to that, we are providing liquidity to these customers. Is every single person that we're providing liquidity to also using that in a productive manner? Are we ensuring that it's impactful?

Is it the right price for them, the right amount for them? You know, I grapple with that. I grapple with we're 600 people now. That's people who have families. People have to pay their rent. I'm also after this massive, audacious mission as a, you know, first-time entrepreneur. How can I ensure that everyone's going to be safe? What do you feel as you're saying these words right now? What's happening inside you? I mean, I think I care. And so it's emotional. The elegance

that you have in the way that you communicate your ideas is noted. And the animation of emotion and clarity is also noted with the idea that you've dedicated your life and your other people are trusting you, you know, and their rent and their mortgages and their child's well-being. And all of that responsibility, it sounds like what keeps you clear on this disruptive path that you're on is that i want to help understand and amplify how people can trust each other is that close to being right because i've never heard a company mission being around trust that's it how would you finish this thought it all comes down to for me it's believing in myself yeah and i don't want i don't want to answer it for you i think i have the understanding of it but

how do you develop belief in self i think you have to believe that there there is something bigger than you. Okay. How do you get challenged? Like, what challenges that? And hold on. Is that a spiritual statement about what happens after our physical form dies? Or is that about in our time on this planet together, there's bigger missions than my needs? No, I don't think it's that there are bigger missions than my needs, but that it's that

interdependence. So it's, there are bigger missions than, there are bigger missions that I will be a part of, that I am a part of. And so, sure, maybe there is a spiritual nature to that. It's not a spiritual nature of your afterlife. But it's, I think if you can remember that, again, you know, even getting here today, right? There were so many other things that led to this. And so if I believe that there will be many more things that lead to other things, then, you know, it's just that I need to believe that

I'm on the right path and that I always will be. And then what challenges you, pulls you away from the clarity and the conviction you have in this conversation? What pulls you away from that type of conviction? I mean, there are so many naysayers. How do you navigate that? When they, you've got a clarity of an idea, you're feeling good about it, and then someone else says, she doesn't know what she's doing.

She has no clue. She's actually hurting and setting us back. Have you ever heard that? So I think it's actually, I would say it's really listening without it affecting you. So I think when you hear the naysayers, when you hear, and those naysayers might be close to you, right, and that becomes harder. I think the way you do it is, again,

I think really, like, it does go back to empathy a little bit for me, which is, at the end of the day, how can you listen? How can you understand that viewpoint? But it's not deviating you. It just helps you kind of refine it. And then that allows you to kind of recenter, right? So if I think back to when I first started, I got a ton of people telling me not to do it. Got a ton of people telling me to do it. Ultimately, I had to decide. But I wanted criticism, right? I wanted feedback. And so I think, you know,

sort of believing yourself doesn't mean don't listen to other people and don't go get that stuff because that should just make you stronger. And so that's how I deal with it is like the recentering is how can I listen to someone saying that and like actually be present in hearing the feedback. It may not ultimately change me, because I'm on my own path, but it helps me rebase. And when somebody that you trust and respect or love has that counter negative something to what is surprising to you,

is there a moment in time that comes up for you that you would be comfortable talking about? Yeah, I mean, I think we could talk about it as even developing a leadership team. You can have board members that have a lot of say in your company, and you can have them telling you specifically a pedigree they're looking for or a skill set they're looking for, etc. And you can then also you can listen to it. You can hear what they're trying to understand. You can kind of listen to what is driving them to say that. And that allows you to then understand, OK, there might be an insecurity that they're not actually they're insecure about something and so they're trying to fill it with by saying this thing right

if I understand that then I can go solve a problem right so I think it's you shouldn't be afraid of listening to naysayers it's actually just listening in a very different way so that you can get to the root cause and you're listening for where that you're listening to the thing behind the words or underneath the words. Would you describe it behind or underneath? I would probably say underneath. Underneath. And then how have you practiced this ability to be present in difficult moments?

You have to shut down your own insecurity, right? So you have to actually, you know, if someone's coming at you with that, right, you have to remember, again, it's this thing around we're all, we're humans, right? And so I can then in that moment have more care for that individual if i can say okay shvani you can see that this person's agitated you can see this person's feeling like this and so how can you be calmer so that it opens them up i mean where did

this come from like how are you doing this this is remote i've spent my whole life working to understand these principles from a scientific standpoint working in the amphitheater of real risk and you're answering them eloquently and expressing and living them in real time you're doing in this conversation like I don't understand how you're able to do it mm-hmm I'm watching and listening and going that's really good that yes yeah okay that makes perfect sense so my thesis in this conversation was going to be that you have disrupted the narrative of financial systems and I'm not sure how disruptive you've been to your own inner narrative because it feels like from

early days you had a strong foundation that has been consistent as a thread through your life maybe that's not the case but i'd like for you to push back on this and and help me understand the inner narrative that you work through i kind of think of myself as like macgyver um as I was just being like, I'm going to figure it out. Who are some of the folks that if you could have the chance to actually sit with them, you'd be a beautiful student to their body of work and their thinking strategies? I mean, I think it's people that have started movements. Like?

So I think a lot about this idea of proximity and I think you know so the people that move me are the people that have been proximate to a problem. So you know of course I do I think of Gandhi, I think of my mother right so my mom was the first doctor in her whole entire community. Like not just community, but like much broader in Rajasthan. Whoa, mom. So you come from a legacy of people that buck against systems. I think she bucked against systems and tradition, you know?

What did it take for her to be able to do that? So I always go back to it. It's like something in my mother and I is like, we're just kind of naive. I think, you know, she, if you ask her the same thing, I mean, she traveled across all of India as a single woman, first woman in her entire family, community, city, like to actually first female doctor, all this stuff.

And she was just like, I want to, you know, she ran medical camps. That's extraordinary because your family system is really important to you, right? That's how we started the conversation. What did she water in you? What's the main seed that she watered in you? So the one area that my mother and I are somewhat different in, and I think it's interesting that when I do this work, she does see the world as black and white. She does see the world as good and bad. And I don't. Okay. And then is there something that she helped install in you? And that's a very non-eloquent way of thinking about like a thinking pattern that she helped install in you and that's a very non eloquent way of

thinking about like a thinking pattern that she introduced to you um I think part of the thinking pattern was and I see this still in her is that you know she is just determined it's a less of a show kind of thing where you know my mom to this day she wakes up at 4 30 in the morning she runs five miles i don't know why she just decided that that's what she does um you know she's still doing it she's still working and she cares about her work um and she will do that and nobody can tell her not to right and so i think i think part of it is if I wanted to start a community organization or get a new job or do any of those things, I found a way to do it because I knew I was going to do it. And so it's just sort of like I didn't have to ask for permission.

How about the folks that don't have purpose? What would you want to say to them or share with them? They haven't found it. Maybe they're 40 years old and they still don't know. I think they have it. I think they just need to, I think, I think everyone has it. I think that they have to, they have to take a moment out of their, like something's got to move them, right? And so sometimes it's life events. Sometimes it's, you know, something jars you enough to make you actually realize that. But I think part of it is, you know, if given the opportunity, given the time, I think we can all get there. Because I do, again, believe that at the core, we all have something, right? How would you help all get there because I do again believe that at the core we all have something, right?

How would you help people get there? Allowing them to know that, you know, it's the support that lets you get there. I think that's the thing is that, you know, I say this to my friends when we'll go out to dinner and I will actually try to ask those questions of like, so what is everyone's purpose's purpose right and trying to see what people will say. It goes over well at cocktail parties. Yeah not a great question and I'll hear my friends say you know I just want my kids to be able to have you know stability or I want to be able to you know give them these things and I'll be like but what about you right what about like what is driving you to do that and you know if they can even be able to articulate why is it that they care so much about giving their kids the ability to go to better

schools than they did etc like there is something there but they have to they have to be okay with the anxiety of love like until you get there it's like uncomfortable and then when you have anxiety or anxiousness how do you manage it um i i go down the rabbit hole oh you do yeah so is this writing or is it another mechanism both i think it's um i think writing for me is my outlet but i think of when i have when i am anxious um i'm like okay what's the worst thing that will happen well that's actually an evidence-based approach right I don't know if you know that but in the field of psychology that is a strategy examine

the worst and then look at it really have a hard look at it and then say I actually I think I'm pretty sure I could deal with that and this is how I would deal with it whether it's in writing or conversation. So is that one of your strategies? When you feel something or notice something that you're obsessing about a bit, and then you say, okay, let me follow that next thought, next thought, next thought. What's at the core of it? Yes, exactly.

So I do that. And then I also, when I'm having anxiety, I also think of it as, I think of it almost as a rubber band right and I think of it as if I keep running away from dealing with that then I'm actually gonna snap back right that's the tension that we're creating unnecessarily and so instead how can you how can you deal with it what is causing it let's actually just like be with that anxiety and then actually kind of dissipates actually that's evidence-based as well right if you can name it and stay with it it

actually just kind of evaporates as a way of thinking about dissipating is the right word so do you have a mindfulness or meditation practice wake up at 530 probably you know get to work by 8 9 between 8 and 9 a.m. what are you doing between 530 and 8 I go for my walk oh so you're early riser I am yeah I like to see the sunrise you do what does that do for you so for me I just love the idea that you know I'm waking up when the world is man you are intentional you really are intentional okay so that happens what's happening in your body right now i'm laughing

because i feel like you're trying to connect the dots i am i'm trying to sort it out okay so you wake up you have this thing you're connecting to when the world wakes up so you want to be in rhythm on time if you will and then what? I'll always go for a walk. I have a favorite coffee shop I go to. And it's kind of odd in the sense that it's become like an alternate universe. It's like cheers inside. And every single person, we all know each other's names. It's very not the normal world. So you're looking forward to going there?

I love it. Yeah. Because you're looking forward to going there? I love it. Yeah. Because you feel part of something? I think so. I think a big thing for me is community. And so again, like I'm far away from my family in India and far away from my parents because they live in New York City.

And so, you know, I think again, you know, that intentionality of being able to go somewhere and kind of, you know, if youality of being able to go somewhere and kind of, you know, if you can start your day again by just being in an environment where you're yourself or also just like coming in and being able to provide a little bit of sunlight to another community is important. Okay. So let me see if I can pull some of this together in a way that's making sense. I'd love for you to push back on this, but it feels to me and the thought patterns that I'm having are that you are absolutely aligned with your purpose. And if we go way back, you come from a family tradition that is strong. You guys are connected. There's deep trust. You have people in your life that have demonstrated

what it means to go against the grain your mom becoming one of the first doctors in her area medical doctors and so you you grew up in a system that is intentional this is your family intentional purposeful and that you're carrying that forward and you're carrying that forward by micro choices that you've made every day to be aligned with your purpose and you found it early you found it early because of the system that you came from. And there's something about you that wants to do good in the world without harm. And that good in the world is coming by showing that other people, many people across the planet are trustworthy.

And then you've created a business to be able to support the exchange of that trust. So it's not just a thought, it's also a behavior. And it just so happened to disrupt an entire industry in doing so. And this is far deeper than female Jainism from India carving a path. It's far bigger than that. That is your constitution. That is your makeup. But your constitution is something that is for humanity and to do it at scale. Does that seem close?

Yes. You take moments and beats to reflect on the internal experience that you're having. You go back to the mission. You'll speak to yourself in kind ways. Then you'll notice trends and themes and you'll dig into those to try to get to the source. You'll face that. And then the courage to do that allows you to have courage in other parts of your life to speak up, to not say something possibly, and to live with grace and purpose. I think so. The only thing I would add is, I think something else that kind of helps is making it fun. I think that's the other aspect. If I can reflect on it, it's like when I

have, when I'm just, when it's fun, right? Whether whether it's getting that job whether it's starting a company whether it's learning about you know kind of a you know let's say a new sort of product that we want to do um if you can kind of remember that yeah like you are doing it for the first time so just go do it right like have that fun in. I think it's also, it stops being so serious. And I think that that is the, that's the journey piece of it. Beautiful. Risk taker or rule follower? Oh, risk taker. What a gift to humanity, improving the quality of our community's lives. And I feel enriched by being able to listen to understand how you think as well. So thank you. Thank you.

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